A mattress foundation is an integral part of most beds. The foundation serves to distribute loads applied to the mattress which, in turn, can make the mattress feel more comfortable and prolong its life relative to a mattress that is not supported by a foundation. While the mattress foundation serves these important purposes, existing foundations suffer from several limitations inherent to their design.
For example, assembled foundations often occupy a rather large volume, much of which is empty space unoccupied by the springs or frame members that provide structure to the foundation. Thus, when the assembled foundations are shipped to distributors or customers, much of the “freight” that is hauled from the manufacturer is actually just air. This waste decreases the number of assembled foundations that can be shipped using a finite capacity and, accordingly, the cost associated with this finite shipping capacity is spread among fewer foundations.
Also, typical mattress foundations are made from fixed frames whose dimensions cannot be adjusted. Therefore, the height of the foundation, which will impact the overall height of the bed (i.e., stacked mattress and foundation), cannot be adjusted. However, customers may wish, for various aesthetic and functional considerations, to have the ability to select from a number of different bed heights. In order to provide this option using typical mattress foundations, the manufacturer must produce and the distributor or retailer must stock several different foundations, each having a different height, for a given bed. The increased/custom manufacturing capacity and increased inventory necessary to provide this option to consumers would further increase the cost of each foundation.
A need therefore exits for a mattress foundation that can be provided at different heights, thereby permitting the overall height of a bed utilizing the foundation to be varied. A need also remains for a mattress foundation whose overall volume can be reduced during shipping, thereby permitting more foundations to be shipped using a finite capacity. The invention provides such a mattress foundation. These and other advantages of the invention, as well as additional inventive features, will be apparent from the description of the invention provided herein.